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2026 Statistics
Key Facts: VWO Filosofie Exam
3 hours
Centraal Examen Duration
Examenblad.nl
≥ 5.5
Subject Pass Grade (1-10 Scale)
CvTE
5 Domains
Curriculum Areas (A to E)
SLO VWO Syllabus
50% / 50%
CE / SE Grade Weighting
Dutch Secondary Ed Rules
100
English Practice MCQs Here
OpenExamPrep Study Adaptation
Primary Texts
Core Exam Basis
CvTE Exam Framework
CvTE
Exam Board Administrator
College voor Toetsen en Examens
Hard
Exam Difficulty Level
Secondary Academic Pathway
Official VWO Filosofie 2026 is CE (3-hour written analytical exam) plus school SE. These 100 English MCQs provide practice on ethical frameworks, epistemological arguments, philosophical anthropology, and text-based reasoning.
Sample VWO Filosofie Practice Questions
Try these sample questions to test your VWO Filosofie exam readiness. Each question includes a detailed explanation. Start the interactive quiz above for the full 100+ question experience with AI tutoring.
1Which classical position on the mind-body problem holds that reality consists of two fundamentally distinct substances: extended physical matter (res extensa) and non-extended thinking mind (res cogitans)?
A.Substance dualism (Descartes)
B.Physicalist materialism (Hobbes)
C.Neutral monism (Spinoza)
D.Phenomenology (Husserl)
Explanation: René Descartes famously formulated substance dualism in his Meditations on First Philosophy, positing that human beings consist of two distinct substances: res extensa (extended corporeal body) and res cogitans (thinking immaterial mind).
2Helmuth Plessner's philosophical anthropology contrasts human existence with animal existence using which key concept?
A.Centric positionality versus excentric positionality
B.Determined instinct versus pure rationality
C.Biological reductionism versus cultural idealism
D.Enclosed mind versus open cosmos
Explanation: Helmuth Plessner argued that while animals live in a 'centric' positionality (bound directly to their environment without reflecting on themselves), humans possess 'excentric positionality'—the capacity to step back, reflect upon their own body and placement in the world, and experience themselves as both having a body (Körper) and being a body (Leib).
3In Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception, how is the body understood in relation to consciousness?
A.The body is a mere physical instrument controlled by an independent Cartesian mind
B.The body is the primary vehicle of being-in-the-world, through which perception and action are intrinsically embodied (Leib)
C.The body is an optical illusion generated by sensory impressions
D.The body is a machine whose functions are entirely reducible to mechanical reflexes
Explanation: Merleau-Ponty rejected Cartesian dualism, arguing that human consciousness is fundamentally embodied ('corps vivant' / 'Leib'). We do not observe the world from an external disembodied standpoint; rather, our body is our anchored perspective and vehicle for experiencing reality.
4According to Julien Offray de La Mettrie's radical 18th-century materialist manifesto 'L'homme Machine', human thoughts and feelings are best explained as:
A.Immaterial soul activities guided by divine intervention
B.Purely mechanical and physiological operations of bodily organs and brain tissue
C.Trancendental structures existing independently of matter
D.Socially constructed language games devoid of physical basis
Explanation: La Mettrie extended Descartes' mechanical view of animals to human beings, claiming that humans are complex biological machines and that mental phenomena are direct results of physical brain mechanisms.
5What is the central claim of Hard Determinism regarding human free will?
A.Free will exists because humans make conscious choices unaffected by physical laws
B.Determinism is false because quantum mechanics guarantees human freedom
C.All human actions are completely determined by prior causes and physical laws, meaning free will is an illusion
D.Free will and determinism are fully compatible as long as there are no external constraints
Explanation: Hard Determinism asserts that causal determinism is true (every event, including human choice, is governed by previous states and natural laws) and that this rules out genuine free will.
6Philosopher Harry Frankfurt proposed an influential hierarchical account of free will. According to Frankfurt, a person acts with a free will when:
A.Their first-order desires align with their second-order volitions (they want what they want to want)
B.They could have physically done otherwise under identical initial conditions
C.Their decisions are completely uncaused by prior mental states
D.They act purely out of self-interest without social influence
Explanation: Frankfurt's mesh theory holds that freedom of the will involves second-order volitions: having the desire that a particular first-order desire (e.g. wanting to exercise rather than eat cake) effectively moves one to action.
7In John Locke's psychological continuity theory of personal identity, what establishes that Person A at Time 1 is identical to Person B at Time 2?
A.Continuity of the same immaterial soul
B.Continuity of consciousness and memory
C.Numerical identity of the biological body
D.Continuous social recognition by peers
Explanation: Locke argued in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding that personal identity depends on consciousness extending backwards in time through memory, rather than on the persistence of physical body or immaterial substance.
8In contemporary philosophy of technology, Peter-Paul Verbeek's concept of 'technological mediation' posits that technologies:
A.Are neutral tools that humans use without affecting human perception or moral action
B.Actively shape human perception of the world and mediate moral actions and decision-making
C.Inevitably enslave humanity and destroy authentic human nature
D.Are mere economic commodities without philosophical significance
Explanation: Drawing on postphenomenology (Don Ihde), Verbeek argues that technological artifacts are not passive instruments; they actively co-shape how humans perceive reality (amplifying/reducing aspects) and co-shape how humans act (inviting/inhibiting actions).
9What is the primary objection raised by Thomas Nagel in his famous essay 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' against reductionist physicalism?
A.Bats possess higher moral reasoning than humans
B.Physicalist theories fail to account for the subjective, qualitative 'what-it-is-likeness' of conscious experience (qualia)
C.Neuroscience will eventually prove that physicalism is entirely accurate
D.Bats do not have brains capable of processing sensory data
Explanation: Nagel argued that objective, third-person physical descriptions cannot capture subjective, first-person conscious experience (the subjective character of experience). Even if we knew every physical fact about a bat's sonar system, we would not know what it feels like from the inside to be a bat.
10Andy Clark and David Chalmers proposed the 'Extended Mind Thesis'. Which thought experiment is used to support this view?
A.Mary the color scientist in her black-and-white room
B.Otto and his notebook used as external memory alongside Inga's biological memory
C.The Chinese Room understanding foreign symbols
D.The brain in a vat stimulated by a supercomputer
Explanation: Clark and Chalmers introduced Otto, an Alzheimer's patient who relies on a physical notebook to record information. They argue that Otto's notebook functions identically to Inga's biological memory, meaning cognitive processes extend beyond the biological brain into environmental artifacts.
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